


but the architects only drew blanks

by Mx_Carter



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Angst, Autism Spectrum, Cancer, F/M, M/M, Murder, Neurodiversity, Season/Series 01, tw hannibal lecter falling in love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-27
Updated: 2018-06-27
Packaged: 2019-05-29 15:51:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15076520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mx_Carter/pseuds/Mx_Carter
Summary: A few universes over, Will Graham's soul sits on his shoulder. He's still a mess, and Hannibal Lecter still wants to eat his heart.





	but the architects only drew blanks

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Poor Atlas by Dessa.  
> Whose daemon is what is listed at the end of each chapter. Feel free to ask about my choices if you're curious, I love me some rambling about headcanons.

**_i. Corvus corax_ **

The road is dark and empty and Will’s head is full to bursting with someone else’s love. He’d felt it like walking into a hot, closed room filled to the brim with dried perfumed flowers – a thick tide of scent you could almost taste, so warped by heat and closeness and sheer _mass_ that it ceased to resemble perfume at all.

Not that he’d said that to Crawford, of course. Jack Crawford is an intelligent man, but not so prone to poetry, not on the job. He doesn’t want a metaphor, he wants a murderer, and Will can’t give him that murderer just yet. The lab techs will probably find something before he does.

Cass had been right, he should have stayed in his lecture hall.

A beak closes over his ear and tugs him out of the fog. He slows the car and turns to look over his shoulder, and Cass jabs her beak at the window, pointing to the side of the road and – a dog. There’s a dog running just on the edge of the asphalt, with a length of rope tied around its neck.

The dog doesn’t come when he calls to it, and it runs away the first time he stops the car to try and get it to come closer. A part of him wants to give up – he’s tired, down to his cartilage and bones. But one look at Cass and he knows they’re not going to.

The next time he stops the car, Cass hop-flaps her way into the boot and starts rummaging through the crap he never quite gets around to cleaning out. By the time he’s gone round and opened up the boot, she’s emerged triumphant with a little plastic bag filled with what looks like convenience store franks, the ones that never seem to go off. He buys them for the dogs sometimes, Harley and Jack love them for some reason.

“I didn’t put that there,” he says, and she tilts her head at him; _well, more fool you, then_. He concedes the point.

Apparently whatever shit they put in those sausages smells like food, or the dog’s hungry enough to risk it. Probably both, and Will feels a familiar ache at how wary it is, even as he gentles it with food and kind words. Cass flaps up to his shoulder and runs her beak through his hair, and he reaches a free hand up to stroke over her inky back, feathers smooth and warm.

When the dog’s a bit calmer and is sniffing at Will’s hand even _sans_ sausage, Cass hops down to road level. She’s careful not to get close enough to crowd, but the dog doesn’t seem so spooked. It even trots over to investigate her. Cass is used to this, they’ve done the new-dog drill often enough, and she stays still and lets it have a good sniff. Studies have shown that dogs can not only pick out a daemon from an animal, as pretty much all animals can, but are able to match daemons to their respective humans. Hopefully, if the dog likes him, it’ll like her.

The dog very carefully licks the top of Cass’s head, and Will grins.

Cass, radiating smugness, hops in place and then takes off to fly back to Will. They’re both pleased when the dog only startles a little, before trotting back over to them. It takes a team effort to coax it into the boot, where Cass distracts it while Will does a cursory medical exam. No open wounds – Cass would probably have noticed those anyway – and any less serious wear and tear is hidden by the mud and grime it’s coated in. He does establish that the dog is a male, and even manages to get the rope off his neck, with slow movements and Cass to help soothe the poor thing.

She stays in the boot for the rest of their journey, and by the time he parks in the driveway the new dog is curled around her. She doesn’t even pretend to be affronted by it, he can feel her joy from here. In a minute, he’s going to have to go fill the dog bath, and they’ll find out whether New Dog has any water-related anxiety. Still, he allows himself to rest beside them for a minute, by turns petting New Dog and running a finger through Cass’s plumage.

“What do you think, for a name,” he asks, and she gives one of her little bird shrugs. Then she tilts her head to meet New Dog’s soft, uncomplicated doggy eyes.

In that quiet, precious corner of his head that belongs wholly to her, he hears _how about Winston?_

Will considers, but hey, it’s as good a name as any. New Dog opens his mouth and lolls his tongue when Will suggests it to him, but that might just be the ear scritches.

Cass detaches herself carefully from the newly christened Winston to fly to the house, slipping through the flap they jury-rigged into one of the windows for her to come and go. He can hear the dogs barking ecstatically as they greet her, loving her as much as she loves them. The warmth of that love runs tendrils through the knots of his brain, and it’s so different from the choking, pressing beast of a thing he saw in Elise Nichol’s bedroom and her stiff, still body.

Tonight, he’ll probably have another nightmare, and he’ll spend tomorrow and the next day and the next sending his brain down dark holes where Cass can’t follow him, plunging into another man’s mind and another man’s soul. Tomorrow, she’ll be furious and cold by turns and always, always afraid, the fear they carry with them at the roots of their hair and feathers.

The image of a dog bath is shoved into his brain, accompanied by a wave of exasperation and helpless affection. He grins into the night, and carefully chivvies Winston to standing. The message comes through loud and clear. He’s an idiot, they’ll worry about this tomorrow, and he needs to wash the damn dog.

Fair enough, Will thinks back at her, and goes to wash the damn dog.

 

**_ii. Panthera pardus fusca_ **

Not for the first time, Giedrė is glad that any fur she loses will fade to Dust within seconds. Having to wear one of Hannibal’s ridiculous plastic suits might put her off their favourite extracurricular activity for good. Not to mention how it would get in the way of her claws.

The domestic cat daemon currently beneath these claws hisses and spits, anger masking terror. This isn’t how they usually kill, but she can still appreciate the fear rising in a fog off the little animal. And since they don’t plan on taking anything, they can indulge their sadism without concern for the flavour of the meat.

The girl whose soul Giedrė is holding to the floor has been restrained, but Hannibal removed the gag once they arrived at the cabin. At least this one doesn’t beg for her life – she yells and swears just like her daemon does. Her defiance is as pleasing as her appalling manners are irking. Giedrė derives some comfort in knowing she will soon be punished for her rudeness.

Hannibal has his back to the three of them, studying the antlers with a pensive set to his shoulders. She does not give her input – if Hannibal will insist on dull plagiarism, he may do so, but she won’t lend herself to it.

They both have their amusements.

Hannibal reaches a decision and turns to her, eyes dancing as they so rarely do. Giedrė can’t feel his excitement anymore than he can feel hers, but they can still read each other better than anyone. After all, they’ve spent all their lives together, he and her.

“My dear,” he addresses her, looking past the ill-mannered girl and her snarling soul as if to his mind, they’re already so much meat and Dust. “this one is for you, I think.”

Giedrė allows her tongue to loll out of her mouth to better drink down the terror spilling from the little cat beneath her. Sensing what is coming, he finally begins to beg, defiance evaporating at the last. She leans down and combs her tongue through his soft fur, tasting. As her daemon sobs, Marissa Schurr begins to scream.

Such an easy thing, to open her mouth and bite down. To allow the full strength of her jaws to force her teeth through fur and skin and flesh, through the esophagus and trachea and finally into the spine. For a precious second, blood wells and spills into her mouth, hot and thick and salty-savoury on her tongue. Her ears are filled with screams and the gurgle of her prey’s last desperate breath.

Then the little cat explodes into Dust, and Miss Schurr slumps, a perfectly inanimate sculpture of flesh.

Satisfaction fills her up like sunlight, and Giedrė swallows her mouthful of blood as she pads over to Hannibal. He extends a hand to her and she butts it with her head, winding around him as she imagines Miss Schurr’s soul might have done. They both desire physical closeness after a kill more than usual, although their more than usual is about average for a more typical human and daemon.

“Pose it,” she tells him, “and then let’s go. I’m tired.”

“Of course,” he nods, and bends to the body of her kill. He begins to strip it, looking pleased at the simple white of its underwear. The aesthetics, probably. Giedrė has to admit that with Miss Schurr’s dark hair and the almost-black that her blood will dry to, the image will be striking.

This is not to say she approves.

Losing interest, she pads down the stairs to the ground floor of the cabin. It’s been thoroughly cleared out by FBI forensicists, but the smells of death linger, both animal and, yes, human.

Hares have an excellent sense of smell, Giedrė thinks. If Abigail Hobbs had been coming to this cabin with her father while he was active as a serial killer, her Daniel would have smelled something. She must have known what her father was doing. Either she was actively helping him, or simply keeping silent. Whichever way, they have observed enough of conventional morality in her to be sure she feels entirely complicit.

When they stumble across the body tomorrow and find the tissue traces Hannibal must now be applying to Miss Schurr’s teeth, Nicholas Boyle will become desperate. It is his misfortune that he has the look of a school shooter, unwashed and wild-eyed, and that his daemon has the form of a rat. Giedrė supposes the boy must have some intelligence when not driven to the edge by grief and hatred, but stereotypes are what they are, and she is sure the media will delight in smearing him for his soul’s shape. He will soon be desperate; desperate enough, perhaps, to seek out Abigail in order to set the record straight. He will not be careful with her, in his hatred and his grief. And Abigail is evidently a consummate survivor. Not yet ready to kill of her own accord, but if threatened, she will lash out.

All she and Hannibal need do is be close, for the aftermath.

Twitching her tail lazily, Giedrė wanders out into the cool night. The car is parked a way from the cabin, so she starts the walk. After the closeness of the cabin’s loft, clean forest air is akin to a palate cleanser, and she breathes deep and listens to the movement of insects and small creatures in the woods she moves through. The satisfaction of her kill is still warm and sweet beneath her skin. In the darkness, she basks in it.

When Hannibal finishes his tableau and returns to the car, she settles herself on the passenger seat. It isn’t half as comfortable as the Bentley and smells appalling besides, but she really is tired. Unusually so – she’s normally far more awake at night, and neither of them tire easily anyway. She poses this to Hannibal.

“We have had a slight lifestyle change,” she says, watching the trees flash past the car window and trying to block out the smell of the car. “A little more consulting with the FBI, although I don’t see how that could be affecting me.”

Hannibal considers. “There is one change in our lives that is more significant than most.” When she looks at him, he clarifies. “We made the acquaintance of Will Graham.”

“You think Will Graham tires me?”

“On the contrary, I think Will excites both of us, more than anything has in a good while.”

“And my excitement tires me.” She tilts her head, considering. It’s a fair enough explanation; neither she nor Hannibal are used to expending much emotional resources. So little truly touches them.

Apparently, that little now includes Will Graham and the proud, mute raven that sits on his shoulder.

“Perhaps we should be spending less time with him, then,” she suggests. “If we’re to bring the head of the Behavioural Analysis Unit to our dinner table, we must be at the top of our game. And Will is perceptive, him and his raven both. We shouldn’t risk him perceiving something we’d rather keep hidden.”

Even as she says it, she knows neither of them will take her advice. Will Graham is _new_ , beautiful in his potential, fascinating in how he shrinks from it. Giedrė has dreamed about his raven, twisted dreams of shadow and warmth and the ephemera of feathers melting to Dust in her mouth. When she wakes, she cannot immediately tell if she’d dreamed of killing the other daemon, or…well. Something else.

So long, since she’s wanted in this way. To give it up, even in self-preservation…perhaps she could do it, given sufficient motivation. But she does not want to.

Hannibal does not want to either. His game with Will Graham is only just beginning, now the man has begun to relax around him. And until recently, they have been so very bored. Now there are possibilities; in Will Graham, in young Abigail, in their association with the Bureau. They are both more curious than they have been in years.

Back at the motel, they walk past Will’s doorway. On a whim, Giedrė bends to the crack under the door and inhales deeply.

Terror, both human and avian, somehow so much more welcome than that of the girl they had just disposed of. Will had mentioned nightmares, hadn’t he.

Hannibal can pick locks; if she asked, he would do so. She could climb up onto the mattress, press the raven into her chest and take from the very source. She wonders if they’d wake, or if the nightmare would keep them in its grip, holding them underwater as she held their very self to her. For a moment, she even considers combing her tongue over Will Graham’s skin to taste his fear-sharp sweat.

Hannibal must read the sudden tension in her frame, or else he’s thinking the same thing she is. He crouches and slides a hand the fur on the back of her neck. “All things in time,” he tells her softly.

Sighing, she turns to rest the top of her head against his forehead. “All things in time,” she replies, her voice turning hot and dark almost without her consent.

No, common sense be damned, they cannot walk away now, not when they’re both so invested. Giedrė supposes they’ll just have to see what will happen.

****

**_iii. Aquila chrysaetos_ **

They’d both driven to Dr Lecter’s office, and so he and Bella drive home in separate cars. On one hand, this is a good thing. Jack got dangerously close to falling apart back in Dr Lecter’s office, and him going to pieces is the last think Bella needs right now.

On the other hand, the words _My wife is going to die_ have been looping round his head since Bella said _Stage four_ , and even though logic says that’s a long way off yet, letting her out of his sight is torture. Clarity hasn’t taken her eyes off the back of Bella’s car since she and Orcus got into it.

“Jack,” Clarity says from by his ear, voice terribly soft. She hasn’t said a damn thing since the interview with Mrs Buddish. That’s not too unusual – Clarity’s always been quiet as Jack is loud, a still and steady centre. She’s got a theory that her habitual reserve is one of the reasons Will Graham’s daemon took to her. Some days, Jack thinks the odd friendship the two have is the only reason Will hasn’t walked away yet.

Still, her silences aren’t normally this long. Not that there’s anything normal about the love of your life telling you she has terminal fucking cancer.

At some point, he’s started crying. Probably before Clarity spoke. The road is blurring, he should get a hold of himself before he crashes the damn car, but he doesn’t think he can.

“What are we going to do?” one of them asks, and the other says “I don’t know.”

When he finally pulls into the driveway, Bella is already out her car and leaning against the front door, one hand draped over Orcus’ back. The crane has his head resting against her chest, neck curved. That was the first thing he’d noticed about the two of them, how graceful Orcus somehow manages to be in every movement – even walking, when he should by rights look ungainly. The warm, buttery Italian sunshine had lit his bright white plumage, gilded it and set off the sharp inky contrast of his neck and legs and the secondary and tertiary feathers of his wings. Bella’s hair had been gilded too, all her beautiful curls gleaming copper, bronze and deep red. Like some archaeological find, something ancient and precious.

Heavy-legged and dreamlike, Jack crosses the driveway and they reach for each other, almost at the same time. He pulls her into his arms and feels her warm and solid, fat and muscle and bone beneath it all. Her hands spread, clutch at his back, gripping like she’s about to fall of the face of the earth and she’ll be damned if she doesn’t take him with her. Clarity buries her head in Bella’s hair and Orcus presses between them and they stand like that as the sky slowly darkens, until the first drops of rain begin to fall.

Bella’s the one who lets go first, who smiles shakily and says “Are we going to actually go into the house at some point, do you think?” and reaches in her pocket for the door keys. Jack can’t help wondering whether that’s how it’s going to be now. Bella slowly pulling bits of herself away whenever she judges them both ready, packing herself up so when she finally goes, there’ll be hardly anything left to lose. It seems practical, dignified, maybe even kind by some reckoning. Very Bella. Clarity bites his ear, hard, when she catches the tail end of that thought.

They move through the house on autopilot, hanging up coats, toeing off shoes and setting down bags. Normally, one of them would migrate to the living room while the other fixed coffee or tea, the roles switching depending on who had the worst day. But today, Orcus makes his careful way up the stairs and Bella and Jack follow him. Marriage telepathy clicks in at some point and they change into pyjamas without needing to discuss that at five in the afternoon, they’re both writing off the rest of the day.

Normally, Orcus and Clarity sleep in a corner opposite to the bed, where Clarity has a perch that puts her about level with Orcus when he’s sitting down. It’s difficult for two birds to snuggle, but Jack and Bella have been married a long time, so they’ve had a while to get the logistics down. This evening, though, both daemons end up on the bed. Orcus has to do a kind of flapping jump to get himself up, and that actually makes Jack chuckle, today of all days. He catches Bella’s eye and soon they’re both laughing, so hard they have to clutch each other and collapse on the bed so they don’t just fall on the floor. Clarity makes a derisive noise and swoops over to Orcus, nestling into him as much as she can with her talons and preening his ruffled feathers.

By the time Jack’s got his breath back, he and Bella are lying curled into and onto each other on the centre of the bed, bodies twisted and heads squashed into the space between the pillows. Bella’s elbow is digging into his ribs.

“It wasn’t that funny” Orcus says grouchily, and sighs deeply when the three of them make a show of looking away and humming.

Bella notices where her elbow is, and nudges him gently. “Come on, Jack, we’re both too old to fall asleep like this.”

It takes some wiggling to get settled, between the two good-sized daemons on top of the sheets and utterly unwilling to move and the fact that neither Jack nor Bella seem to be able to stop touching each other. Jack gets that elbow in his ribs properly, but he does accidentally kick Bella in the shin, so he reckons they’re even.

Only once they’ve finally got their old bodies in a sensible configuration does Bella break down.

She does it quietly, the way she always cries. The first clue he gets is the tears soaking into his nightshirt, before her shoulders start shaking. Jack does what he always does when she cries – gets his arms around her dear shoulders and just holds her quietly, waits it out with her. Like always, it’s a wrench to see his wife go to pieces, but that’s not the point right now.

Somehow, Orcus manages to shift so he’s pressed up against Bella’s back, tucking his head over her neck with Clarity up against his, beak buried in his snowy feathers. Jack catches Clarity’s eye as he kisses Bella’s forehead, and helpless pain fills the space between them.

It feels like a year until Bella finally stops shaking and begins to get her breath back under control. Normally this is the point where Jack would ease away, give her a little space, but something about the way Orcus has managed to tuck Clarity under a wing makes him think twice. Bella doesn’t push him away, just knocks her head into his chest a couple of times.

“God, sorry,” she says, rusty-voiced, “I thought I wasn’t going to do that.”

“Don’t you apologise,” Jack tells her, twisting away to grab the tissue box before settling back down with her, “don’t you dare.” He realises suddenly that that’s the first thing he’s said since the drive home.

Bella blows her nose and blots at her eyes. “It just seems more real, now you know. Stupid, isn’t it? I’ve seen the scans, talked about it with Dr Lecter and with my specialists, I knew this was really happening. To be honest, I thought I’d come to terms with it.”

Jack could tell her what he’s learned about people’s reactions to disaster, knowledge gained over a long career in law enforcement. But that’s not what she needs to hear now – Lord only knows what she does need to hear, but that’s not it. So instead he says, “I love you. I know that fixes nothing, and changes nothing, and I know it doesn’t comfort you, but it’s what I’ve got. So. I love you.” Orcus twists his neck to rest his head on Jack’s shoulder, and he pulls in a deep breath. The flare of warmth and light that always accompanies this level of intimacy is almost overwhelming added into everything else he’s feeling.

“I know,” he says, pushing the words through numb lips, “that you might decide you do want to be alone. And if you do, I’ll respect that. But I’m selfish enough to hope you won’t. And I hope you know if there’s anything you need from me,” and he can feel his voice choking, he has to cough to clear his throat, “all you have to do is ask.”

Bella tucks her head into his shoulder. “I know, Jack,” she says, and then “I love you too, you ridiculous man.”

They fall asleep like that, stupidly early and tangled up in each other, like the creepers in the garden whose flowers are just beginning to die.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Will - Cassandra, common raven  
> Hannibal - Giedrė, Indian leopard  
> Jack - Clarity, golden eagle  
> Bella - Orcus, red crowned crane


End file.
